As part of an effort to refresh UMPCPortal and bring it up to 2015 SEO standards I’ve been taking advice from various experts and looking closely at the quality of my site. Google Webmaster Tools has been instrumental to the process.

I’m currently doing two things:

1) Removing very old and very short content.

2) Optimising my keyword landscape.

UMPCPortal is over 9 years old and in 2014 had around 50000 pages listed in Google based on around 5500 articles, 1000 product pages, about 100 special pages and 20000 gallery images. The latter, I found out in early 2015, was screwing up my keyword spread, had very little textual content, was ad-heavy and clearly dragging down the site. The keyword spread was heavily biased towards manufacturers and brands which, as a niche technology site (ultramobile pc technology news, research, reviews) should not be my focus.

I got an REV Ritter remote-controlled power switch for my birthday. Wohoo! I had some of these remote-controlled switches about 10 years ago but they were RF-controlled. They’ve long since passed-away(take note if you’re investing in home automation electronics. 10 years goes by very quickly.) This one is WiFi controlled and has an app called G-Homa by a company based in China – Everflourish Electrical. There’s a problem though. A big one. Privacy alert!

I was forced to reset my Dell Venue 8 7000 (2015 model) today and due to the lack of instructions found on Google search I believe it’s now my responsibility to share the sequence here. A factory reset will remove all user data and reset the Dell Venue 8 7000 to factory settings. Again, you’ll lose all saved data and images but if you’ve forgotten your password it’s the only way to resolve the problem. Note: I found this through trial and error. This may not be the official reset sequence (but I guess it is!)

I was going to present this at BarCamp Bonn this weekend (auf Deutsch sogar!) but as I’m going to be flying to Mobile World Congress now I won’t be able to attend. I thought I’d publish it anyway, along with some BarCamp Bonn links to help the cause. This check-list applies to anyone using a Windows PC (but please don’t use Windows XP – it’s past its use-by date!) and some of the tips are relevant if you’re using other operating systems. The list is focused on helping you improve security and privacy when connected to public WiFi (WLAN) hotspots where the dangers are generally the highest. Think about this list when you connect to the WLAN at #bcbn15.

I’ve also published a variation of this list on my main website, UMPCPortal.com where it has a slightly different audience. For you though, my Barcamp Bonn friends I have a few other thoughts as I know there will be people at that event that have few Windows administration skills and even less desire to be messing around with a PC. If you really don’t want to have to mess-around with Windows, think about a Chromebook.

How did my crappy 108-second 4:3 video earn so much and, more importantly, why did it peak 2-years after it was uploaded?

Below is the earnings graph for my best ever YouTube video. It’s 108 seconds long and shot in 640×480 (4:3) on a cheap bridge camera in one-take. I won’t reveal the actual earnings but I will say that it has generated net eCPM at the mid-higher end of what you would expect since I uploaded it at the beginning of 2010. It took me less than 30 minutes to take, make and upload. It’s a one-off and this level of quality wouldn’t make the grade in 2015 but it’s interesting to look at the timescale and the reasons why it was so popular. The curve has deeper meaning and brings up the question of speculative trading in YouTube videos. Dive deeper into the stats and there’s an even more interesting possibility. Video re-marketing.

These ads drive me mad. I read a seemingly well-written and researched article, reach these ads and generally lower my opinion of the article, the author and the site. I’ve blocked them now. The only good thing about them is that they were a good indicator of a site that is pushing to make money in any way possible which, in my mind, indicates poor ethics.

I use the Privacy Badger plugin on Chrome to keep tabs on trackers, auto-block in some cases and to manually block scripts if needed. It’s simple to block Taboola. Here’s an example of a site that used it, before and after applying the Privacy Badger block. More information on how to do this is below.

“Rip-off Britain.” You see that expression in a lot of Daily Mail headlines in the UK and one has to admit that they’re not far from the truth. Three weeks ago I was in the other end of Europe, in Ukraine, where I was paying about 70p for a pint of good beer in a restaurant. In the UK last week I paid £4.50 – 6 times as much. Food from supermarkets is also very expensive due to the extreme amount of marketing that goes into the supermarket process but there are a few bargains about, and i’m not just talking about Heinz Baked Beans. Here’s what I picked up last week to bring back to Germany.

Read the rest of UK foods to bring back to Germany (if you’re an ex-pat!)

As part of a training event with Deutsche Welle in Ukraine this week we visited a local newspapers offices. The small team at Molbuk.ua, Molodyi Bukovinetz, are approaching the question of print vs online with limited resources in a country where honest reporting is becoming more and more important.

Read the rest of New Journalism without Euros. How a small Ukrainian newspaper is tackling change.

It’s with a Nokia 808 in-hand that I decided to kill an hour at the port of Dunkirk in France recently. It’s a grim place. The petro and chemical industry, the lorry parks, old rail infrastructure and the grime caused by the transport of 29 million tonnes of freight per year and 13 million tonnes of roll-on-roll-off vehicles. 2.5 million passengers pass through that part of the port every year and most of those go via the DFDS (was Norfolk Lines) ferry that runs every 2 hours to Dover. Nearly 750 thousand vehicles per year pass through a parking bay with one set of toilets located in a reception building that is, like a disused prison, depressing and interesting at the same time.

Image via the Port of Dunkirk. Reception building and waiting area at middle bottom of image.

Read the rest of An hour with a Cameraphone at Dunkirk Port DFDS Terminal

After trying a reboot on my Lenovo Miix 2 10 today I found myself with a dead device. There was no charging indicator, nothing was happening on pressing the power button and it was the same with a 3 and 10 second power-button press.